2000X from NPR®
Program Listing

2000X




PROGRAM ONE: Week of April 4
"By His Bootstraps" by Robert A. Heinlein.
Richard Dreyfuss travels through time, meeting mysterious characters - who all turn out to be him!

PROGRAM TWO: Week of April 11
"Vaster Than Empires and More Slow" by Ursula K. Le Guin.
A team of misfit explorers lands on a planet that is one vast living - and frightened - organism. With Robert Foxworth and William Sanderson.

PROGRAM THREE: Week of April 18
"Knock" by Fredrick Brown.
"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door." With René Auberjonois.

"Even the Queen" by Connie Willis.
A comedy about a future world where menstruation has been abolished. With Diana Douglas and Barbara Rush.

PROGRAM FOUR: Week of April 25
"The Mission of the Vega" by Friedrich Dürrenmatt.
A diplomatic mission to Venus discovers a political Utopia of criminals and subversives. With Norman Lloyd.

PROGRAM FIVE: Week of May 2
"The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster.
It's Y3K, and a giant computer controlling human civilization breaks down. With David Warner and Samantha Eggar.

PROGRAM SIX: Week of May 9
"A Learned Fable" by Mark Twain.
Intelligent forest animals send an expedition to the ruins of the extinct human race. With David Birney and Nancy "Bart Simpson" Cartwright.

PROGRAM SEVEN. Week of May 16.
"Pillar of Fire" by Ray Bradbury.
A corpse comes alive to punish the future for its lack of respect for the dead. With Allan Miller.

PROGRAM EIGHT: Week of May 23
"R.U.R." by Karel Capek.
The classic play from which the word "robot" derives. With David Birney and John Schuck.

PROGRAM NINE: Week of May 30
"A Sleep and a Forgetting" by Robert Silverberg.
A device intended to probe the stars instead establishes contact with Genghis Kahn. With René Auberjonois.

PROGRAM TEN: Week of June 6
"A Dream of Armageddon" by H. G. Wells.
Love prevents a great leader from saving the world. With Martin Jarvis.

PROGRAM ELEVEN: Week of June 13
"Watchbird" by Robert Sheckley.
The government tries to end all homicides using a flying robot that can smell murderers.

"A Curious Fragment" by Jack London.
Storytellers of the future keep freedom alive. With Erik Bauersfeld.

PROGRAM TWELVE: Week of June 20
"Dear Pen Pal" by E. A. Van Vogt.
A desperate criminal from outer space begins a correspondence with an unsuspecting Earthling. With Charles Durning.

"As Easy as ABC" by Rudyard Kipling.
Members of a kind of global Raj quell a native uprising in Chicago.

PROGRAM THIRTEEN: Week of June 27
"Hunting Season" by Frank Robinson.
A falsely accused criminal is sent back in time to 1950, only to be hunted for sport by the aristocrats who framed him. With John O'Hurley.

Yuri, Robin, and Harlan

Yuri Rasovsky,
Robin Williams,
and Harlan Ellison

Photo courtesy of
Susan Ellison, © 2000


Future episodes of 2000X include:

  • Kurt Vonnegut 's satire "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" with Tom Poston and Merilyn Mercer

  • Harlan Ellison's "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" with Robin Williams

  • C. L. Moore's "Shambleau."

  • Lewis Padgett's "The Proud Robot," with Hamilton Camp

  • Jules Verne's "A Day in the Life of an American Journalist in the Twenty-Ninth Century," with David Dukes.

  • Murray Leinster's "Mad Planet"

  • Bernard Shaw's "The Thing Happens"

  • Edgar Rice Burrough's "Moon Maid"

  • L. Ron Hubbard's "Ole Doc Methusaleh"

  • Theodore Sturgeon's "Hurricane Trio," with Charles Durning

  • Stephen Vincent Benet's "By the Waters of Babylon" with Jay O. Sanders

  • Cyril M. Kornbluth's "Marching Morons"

  • Terry Dowling's "The Only Bird in Her Name," with Robert Foxworth


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